At least 31 killed in Baghdad motorbike market bombing

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 31 people were killed and 51 wounded when a motorcycle rigged with explosives detonated in Baghdad’s Sadr City, Iraqi medical and police sources said.

The motorcycle was parked in a second-hand market in the Shi‘ite Muslim neighborhood that sells used bikes and was filled with people, mostly young men.

Blood covered the ground, storefront windows were shattered and shoes and motorcycle parts were strewn around the market, according to a Reuters’ correspondent at the scene. Dozens of people were screaming for information about their relatives as police sealed off the bomb site.

A wounded man, who identified himself as Ahmed, rested in a nearby hospital. “I was about to leave the market when a huge explosion happened,” Ahmed said. “I was hit in my face and my hands and when I got up, everyone was screaming and running towards me away from the blast. I was not conscious anything, and then I found myself in the hospital.”

It was not clear who was behind the bombing but violence against Shi‘ites is often blamed on the Sunni Muslim Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al Qaeda-linked group.

Baghdad has been hit by wave after wave of bombings since April as the precarious peace enjoyed since the end of Iraq’s sectarian war in 2008 has unraveled.